1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an index image creating device for creating an index image.
2. Description of Related Art
In a conventional image storage device or image communication device such as a digital still camera (which will hereinafter be referred to as a digital camera), image signals of a shot image are converted into digital signals, wherein large-sized image data (which will hereinafter be termed full image data and image data compressed down to a-small size (e.g., 160×120) (which will hereinafter be called a thumbnail), are stored on a storage medium.
This thumbnail is, when downloading the image data in a way that connects the digital camera to a personal computer (that will hereinafter be abbreviated to PC), used for easily confirming the image stored on the storage medium of the digital camera.
To be specific, the PC is connected via a USB (Universal Serial Bus) etc. to the digital camera, a list of image data files stored on the storage medium of the digital camera is, to start with, retrieved on the side of the PC, and thereafter thumbnails of all the image files are downloaded from the digital camera and displayed on a display. Then, a user selects a desired image data file from the thumbnails displayed on the display and is thereby able to download the full image data from the digital camera.
Further, as on mobile devices such as PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), cellular phones etc., the thumbnails are used in the case of confirming the image data by use of a comparatively small-sized display and in a case where the full image data can not be stored due to a restriction in memory etc.
Moreover, with highly-sophisticated functions of the cellular phone, when capturing the image data from the digital camera by connecting the cellular phone to the digital camera, a thumbnail captured by selecting the image file from the image file list, is displayed and thus confirmed, and thereafter the full image can be downloaded and transferred in a way that attaches the full image to an e-mail.
FIGS. 1A, 1B and 1C show one example of steps of capturing image data of the digital camera from on the cellular phone.
Note that this image data capture has hitherto involved the use of a dedicated digital interface and USB (Universal Serial Bus) etc., however, there has been examined a local wireless interface system for locally transmitting the data wirelessly instead of the cable at the present in order to obviate troublesomeness of connecting the cable.
To begin with, image operation functions installed into the cellular phone is selected, and a browsing function for choosing the image data of the digital camera is selected from these functions (1701). When the browsing operation is selected, the cellular phone downloads the list of the image files stored on the storage medium of the digital camera (1703) after executing a local communication connecting step (1702) with the digital camera, and displays the file list on the display (1704).
The cellular phone, when the user selects a designated image file from this list and gives a thumbnail retrieve instruction (1705), reads a thumbnail of the designated file from the digital, camera (1706) and displays the thumbnail on the display (1707).
If the thumbnail displayed at this time is not coincident with the image desired by the user and so forth, the cellular phone designates again the image data file from the image data file list (1708), then retrieves the thumbnail in the same steps as those described above (1709), and display the thumbnail (1710). Then, when confirming that the thumbnail displayed is coincident with the image data desired by the user, the user retrieves the full image data (1712) by giving a full image retrieve instruction (1711).
According to the method described above, however, in the case of selecting the desired image data file of the digital camera from on the PC, there arises a problem that a transfer of all the thumbnails is extremely time-consuming due to a restriction in data transfer speed.
Further, in a mode where the image data file list is retrieved and displayed without retrieving the thumbnails, an image data file is selected from a file name thereof and the thumbnail of the selected image data file is retrieved and confirmed, the user is required to memorize the file name beforehand in order to select the desired image data file.
The user, if unable to remember the file name, must select a proper image data file from the image data file list and confirm the image data by retrieving the thumbnail a plurality of times.
Those problems arise in a case where the image stored on the digital camera, the PDA and PC is confirmed through the cellular phone, the PDA and the PC and transferred to the cellular phone etc. from the digital camera, or in a case where the cellular phone gives an instruction of erasing the image stored on the digital camera etc.